STA Blog

This year’s International Federation of Technical Analysts annual conference was due to take place in Philadelphia, hosted by AAPTA. With travel restrictions and limits on the number of participants at meetings due to the Covid-19 virus, it couldn’t go ahead. But the IFTA Board came up with the brilliant idea of holding it not only virtually but inviting speakers and IFTA affiliated members from all over the world to participate – for free!

I know that my Instagram friend and seriously keen IFTA delegate Yoshinobu Sakai MFTA CFTe was up with the lark in Giju, Japan, to be there at the start of the Asian and Australian session which kicked off at 10:00 am Sydney time. Like the following sessions this was introduced by Mohamed El Said MFTA CFTe and Director of IFTA and Wieland Arlt CFTe, President of VTAD, Director of this conference and newly installed President of IFTA. Then followed 8 speakers, mainly from the region, and rounded off with a Power Hour by AATI.

I managed to see nearly all of the European session which started at 09:00 am Frankfurt time and was co-hosted by Ron William. All 8 speakers gave their presentations in English – and very good

Wieland Arlt, Conference Director

English to boot! Subjects covered were varied and content very clearly illustrated. From Elliott Wave and ‘’deflation being about debt reduction’’, to debunking the Capital Asset Pricing Model, smoothed Heiken Ashi charts, to building a money printing machine with Artificial Intelligence; the conclusion was that it’s very difficult. This session ended with a panel discussion which included keynote speaker Linda Raschke – who looked nothing like her photo in promotional material; she had warned us that it was an ungodly hour in Chicago and that she hadn’t had time to do her makeup.

The American session started at 11:00 New York time with another 8 speakers, an award ceremony to Welles Wilder, and a concluding ceremony coordinated by Mohamed and Wieland. How much coffee did these two need to drink in order to stay on the go for so long? The first speaker was Larry Williams who looks all of his 78 years – and has traded since he was 19; what stamina. He’s also a seriously good teacher having helped many students over the decades. This is evident in his presentation which is clear, well-paced and, though he speaks at a fast pace, I managed to take copious notes. More on him in a subsequent blog.

Above all the conference was a resounding success with more speakers and more delegates than one normally sees at a formal conference setting. A big thank you all for a timetable that was strictly adhered to, excellent visuals and video conferencing with questions and answers. A brave decision by IFTA, carried off superbly by VTAD who took on the task of organising it all.

Note: Recordings of the conference are only available to members of IFTA associated member societies. You could always join your local technical analysis group and get access. That’ll be the STA then!